The Attraction and Dangers of Car Racing

Car racing is one of the most popular competitions in the world; it has little to do with culture and tradition, and more with a passion for speed and automobile super-performance, which is why it was easily adopted and preferred by numerous nations. The first auto racing competition took place in France, in 1887, and the winner was a Frenchman who had built his own car; in all fairness, he was also the only competitor, so his win wasn’t much of an achievement. We’ve come a long way since then, and today car competitions are still a way for car manufacturers to show how performing their cars can be, and for drivers to execute their skills. Yet for all this advanced technology, car racing is still a very dangerous activity, and people are still killed in competition to this day.

In the beginnings of car racing, very few concessions were made to the safety of the drivers; they were mostly concerned with making the cars lighter, more powerful and more responsive, so in many instances, this meant giving up on protection aspects. For these reasons, car racing will always be associated with a lot of deaths, with gruesome accidents, but with great conquests and record-breaking as well. A good example is German racer Niki Lauda, who once suffered a grave accident during a competition, and which had him hospitalized for a long time, and left him with severe burns on his body for the rest of his life. But to show you the dedication and passion of a race car driver, Lauda returned to the tracks as soon as possible, and became Grand Prix champion several times throughout his career.

The same passion gathers spectators over and over again, not to mention the fact that betting on these competitions can be very fruitful. Besides the fact that there are numerous competitions around the world, there is also a lot of money involved in them, first of all for the drivers, and second of all for the audience who bets. The worldwide popularity only increases these numbers, and betting on an activity where people might get hurt is a lot more exciting, like in boxing or wrestling. Of course you can always choose to bet on something less violent, like horse racing, but there’s not always enough thrill to keep people interested.

You can see how in car racing, danger and attraction are so intermingled you can barely separate the two; it is the danger and risk that make racing so attractive and appealing, the defiance of death and laws of physics, the pushing of boundaries and great courage. Race car drivers risk numerous health problems, from blood clots that form due to long times spent sitting behind the wheel, to fumes that can gather inside the car and affect their judgement while driving. The trouble is that a driver may have to continue a race for hours on end, time when they can’t get out of the car or open a window to let air in, so a driver that faints risks injuring themselves and possibly other drivers quite severely.